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Foreign Direct Investment, Services Trade Negotiations and Development the Case of Tourism in the Caribbean

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Foreign Direct Investment, Services Trade Negotiations and Development the Case of Tourism in the Caribbean Foreign Direct Investment, Services Trade Negotiations and Development The case of Tourism in the Caribbean Dirk Willem te Velde1 and Swapna Nair Overseas Development Institute November 2005 This paper examines whether and how developing countries can use services trade negotiations to increase the amount of inward FDI conducive to development, with a focus on the tourism sector in the Caribbean. The importance of tourism services to the Caribbean economy is generally acknowledged, though there is some debate on the varying effects of different types of tourism (cruise boat/eco/mass/cultural forms of tourism are all present in the Caribbean). The paper starts by reviewing the evidence and views on whether and how services trade rules (supply of services mode 3 relates to cross border investment) can affect inward FDI, with specific attention to inward FDI (mainly in hotels and restaurants) and the regulatory framework in the tourism sector in the Caribbean. It complements this with a simple statistical analysis, presenting panel data (1997-2003) on inward FDI in the tourism sector in 9 Caribbean countries and correlate these with data describing the regulatory framework committed in fora such as the WTO General Agreement of Trade in Services, and controlling for other factors affecting inward FDI (using panel data, robust and instrumental variables techniques). From the totality of the above evidence it aims to obtain indications on whether services negotiations are conducive to attracting inward FDI. The concluding sections discuss options in current trade negotiations on trade in services to attract tourism FDI. In multilateral trade negotiations (GATS), Caribbean countries may want to signal openness to inward FDI while maintaining a degree of flexibility in the use of policy measures; in current negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU, the focus could be on liberalising sensitive services sectors as well as on making use of the development dimension of EPAs such as the inclusion of support measures for investment in tourism conducive to the competitiveness of local economic players. Jel code: F13, F21, N76, G28 Key words: Foreign Direct Investment, Tourism, Services Trade Negotiations, Caribbean, Regulation 1 Corresponding author. Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute; [email protected]. 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD, (+) 44 (0) 20 7922 0300, fax: (+) 44 (0) 20 7922 0399. We are grateful for comments by participants at the 2005 DSA conference in September in Milton Keynes. 1 Introduction This paper examines whether and how developing countries can use services trade negotiations to increase the amount of inward FDI conducive to development, with a focus on the tourism sector in the Caribbean. The importance of tourism services to the Caribbean economy is well known. Tourism is the most important services sector in the Caribbean. It takes different forms in different countries, ranging from mass tourism (e.g. Barbados) and cruise ships (for which Islands compete intensively) to eco-tourism (e.g. Belize). There are debates as to which tourism strategies are best suited to address development concerns,2 but it is clear that tourism has become increasingly important for the Caribbean in their diversification process away from commodities. Using Tourism Satellite Accounts, which present the impact throughout the economy not just the sector itself, travel and tourism services currently contribute 15% in Caribbean GDP and 16% in employment3 (see World Travel and Tourism Council, 2004). Investment is critical for further development of the tourism sector, so it is important to understand what drives investment. One possible determinant includes a secure and transparent framework that reduces risk (Dixit and Pindyck, 1994; World Bank, 2004), sometimes called a welcoming investment climate. International trade rules can help to make the investment climate more transparent and secure through enshrining the international commitments that countries make on the basis of their domestic reforms. However, most studies that examine the effects of commitments in international trade negotiations assume that it raises FDI inflows (e.g. Dunlop, 2003; PwC, SIA, 2005), and do not test this assumption. This paper tries to test whether the assumption can be validated by an examination of FDI in tourism in the Caribbean. Caribbean countries are currently dealing with a complex set of negotiations which contain discussions on services: Internal: CSME – the Caribbean Single Market and Economy which include a negative list on services (i.e. it has a list of restrictions which member states will remove according to a fixed scheduled until 2005). Regional: FTAA – Free Trade Area of the Americas which includes a draft chapter on services. Regional: CARIFORUM-EC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations until end of 2008 which can include services. Bilateral: e.g. CARICOM- Costa Rica/Canada/Dominican Republic. Multilateral: GATS 2000 which is part of the Doha single undertaking. So far, St Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Guyana, Grenada and Barbados have made offers, all have received requests. This paper aims to inform international trade negotiations such as GATS and EPA services negotiations on how the Caribbean countries can take advantage of these. 2 There are concerns as to whether and how cruise ships affect the local economy, but CHA (Caribbean Hotel Association) argues that it is important and as such should be included in a GATS definition on tourism. 3 These numbers are 52% and 58% for Barbados and 48% and 48% for St Lucia. Travel is the most important services category accounting for a quarter of export of services in Suriname, half in Barbados (with 531,000 stay-over arrivals and 559,000 cruise passenger arrivals in 2003) and three- quarters in St Lucia (with 277,000 stay-over and 393,000 cruise passenger arrivals in 2003). Specifically, the Carnival alone contributes 12% of tourism receipts in Trinidad and Tobago, the Jazz Festival in St Lucia contributes 6%. 1 The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 will discuss the theory on services negotiations and inward FDI and discuss the pattern of services commitments by Caribbean countries. Section 3 presents the empirical strategy of examining the effects of trade negotiations on inward FDI, and section 4 provides evidence on the basis of regression analysis. Section 5 discusses the implications of the new evidence for two of the trade negotiations, GATS and EU-CARIFORUM services negotiations. Section 6 concludes. 2 Commitments in services negotiations and inward FDI in tourism: theory and evidence so far Theory: GATS and inward FDI Trade in services rules are an important, but hitherto largely neglected in the empirical literature, way in which WTO membership may enhance trade performance through their potential effects on inward FDI. The GATT/WTO included for the first time in 1995 commitments on treatment of foreign providers of services in the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). Countries can commit any of around 160 sub-sectors and four modes.4 Mode 3 in particular relates to the conditions under which foreign firms have access to particular services sectors, and which conditions apply after their establishment.5 In theory there are three types of effects. First, countries can offer market access to foreign providers of services, though in practice GATS commitments have gone little beyond existing liberalisation. Hence, GATS is scarcely used as a liberalising tool. Second, the set of trade rules contained in GATS (especially mode 3 on investment) provides for a transparent framework conducive to private sector activities, reducing uncertainty and encouraging investment. Uncertainty can have significant negative 4 Mode 1: Cross-border supply of services; Mode 2: Consumption abroad; Mode 3: Commercial presence; Mode 4. Temporary movement of natural persons. 5 A country’s obligations under GATS can be divided under two headings: (1) General obligations and (2) Specific Commitments. General obligations apply directly and automatically to all members and services sectors. Under these members are required to accord (a) Most Favoured Nation Treatment (Art II) to all the WTO members (a country has to extend immediately and unconditionally to services or service suppliers of all members treatment no less favourable than that accorded to like services and suppliers of any other country) and maintain (b)Transparency which requires members to publish all measures of general application and respond to other members’ queries. Specific commitments are commitments laid down in individual country schedules and concern specifically designated sectors. The scope of these commitments may vary across countries and sectors. Specific commitments concern (a) Market Access (Art XVI ) which states that ‘members give no less favourable treatment to the services and service suppliers of other members than is provided in its schedule of commitments’ and (b) National Treatment (Art XVII ) which implies that members do not discriminate between foreign and domestic services or suppliers. Art XVI specifies the following six measures affecting free market access that may not be applied to foreign services or suppliers unless they are clearly specified in the schedule – limitations on (1) the number of service suppliers (2) the total value of services transactions or assets (3) the number of services operations or the total quantity of service output(4)
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